We've been rather completely absorbed this weekend in March Madness, although it isn't quite the same without the Spiders in the tournament. Over the years they have made some great "Cinderella" appearances, and made it to the Sweet 16 round in 2011. They even got good airtime yesterday as the commentators, on the heels of Norfolk States's win, reviewed the very first time a 15th seed beat a 2nd seed, when Richmond beat Syracuse in 1991. UR is the only team to win NCAA tournament games as a 12, 13, 14, and 15 seed. There have been some fun games over the years, just not this year. Oh well, there's always next season.
So we made our own madness. When we were shopping for this house in 2004, tops on my list of "must haves" was a big dining room. I've always had an aversion to holiday events where everyone couldn't eat together in the same room. Must go back to some childhood trauma of having to eat at the kid's table in the kitchen, or something. Anyway, that was my goal---a big enough dining room. Not that I'm a great hostess, but we usually have family and some friends, usually UR students, for Easter dinner, and often host Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner at our house. Years ago, that meant 5-7 people, but if all of my side of the family came today, that would be 15, Brian's family 13.
Well, needless to say, our dining room isn't big enough. I've tried being creative by adding a 6-foot folding table somewhere close to the dining room table, but I've found that even parallel, you really can't get more than 10-12 people SQUEEZED into the dining room. We've tried an "L" shape, adding a card table, a sofa table from the hall----none of the options worked. At Christmas we had all of my family for my mom's birtdhay celebration, and the overflow table was in the living room. It just didn't work for me.
Right after that, a good friend stopped by, and was talking about how she had turned her dining room into a playroom for her grandchildren, and moved her dining room furniture to the living room. A light bulb went on for me. It could work, but I would have to convince Brian. You see, for him, the intention of the room is what it is----and shouldn't be changed. And there was a chandelier in the dining room, no ceiling fixture in the living room. There were pros, there were cons. But the deciding factor for him was when I pointed out that if you greeted a guest at our front door, you had to ask them to step inside, then close the door so that they could go left into the living room, while the dining room to the right was completely accessible. Bad design? Maybe, but the traffic flow just didn't work for welcoming anyone.
So, with Easter just a few weeks away, last night we did it. The living room is now the dining room, and the dining room is now the living room. We still have to move pictures, swap mirrors, and fill in a few empty spots, but it works. The new living room/old dining room looks inviting, and to the scale that our furniture fits. The new dining room? I honestly think that end to end I could have our dining room table, and our kitchen table, and a 6-foot folding table. That's a minimum of 18-20 people that could fit in there! It's big, almost cavernous for the furniture we have, but we'll be able to have everyone eat together for Easter, which will make me very, very happy. It really doesn't take much.
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Showing posts with label family. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Turtles
In the late summer of 1999, we were in the early stages of having a porch added to the back of our house. The first step was to dig the footings, and to save money, we did that part ourselves-----24x24x24, with a piece of rebar extending 12” from the bottom of the hole up into the center of the footing, to indicate the depth to which we had to pour cement. In case you’ve never spent any time digging in the soil in central Virginia, let me tell you----it does not consist of dirt, but of clay----hard, hard, hard clay. And in August, it’s even worse.
So what did we use? Shovels. Post-hole diggers. Hoes. Child labor. A 9 year old, and a 15 year old. It was HARD work, but there was great pride when those holes were complete. Square corners. Rebar perfectly centered and straight-----they were beautiful. When the county inspector arrived, he barely glanced at our work, and didn’t even seem to notice how perfect they were. I’m not sure where his priorities were.
But what if we hadn’t had tools? How would we have dug those holes? Probably like you often do in the sand at the beach----down on your knees, digging with your hands. It’s slow work, but it can be done.
One evening in the late spring of 2000, we noticed a turtle digging in our back yard. Having never seen a turtle in that yard in almost 20 years of living there, we found it curious, so we watched for some time.
Have you ever watched a turtle dig a hole? We quickly realized this was a mother turtle, digging a nest. She basically straddled the place she chose, and used her back feet to dig. Think about that. Imagine holding the weight of your body----especially if your body was proportionately the size of a turtle’s body----and you’re pregnant------and digging a hole behind you with your feet. You can’t see what you’re doing. Not that it mattered, but it was getting darker outside, so she was literally digging blindly in the dark. But she kept going. After a while we realized we could see that she was laying her eggs in the hole she had so carefully dug. She carefully covered over the eggs and the hole, smoothing the area perfectly flat. And then she left.
And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Longer than our research said we would have to wait. We waited so long that we gave up, and forgot about those turtle eggs carefully placed in the middle of our back yard.
Until one day, MONTHS later, when we saw…….one baby turtle in the yard ……and then another baby turtle in the yard. We were so surprised. That mama turtle had known exactly what she was doing, and those eggs had hatched exactly like they were supposed to. Why were we so surprised?
Have you ever felt like you were digging blindly in the dark? Like you were using your feet to dig when it would have been easier with your hands? And then wondered if anything good was going to come out of all your effort? Or maybe you had actually forgotten about the work you did, and figured it was all for nothing anyway, and nothing was going to come of it?
Did you know the Bible talks about digging?
Psalm 7:15 (New International Version)
15 He who digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit he has made.
falls into the pit he has made.
Oh, wait a minute, that may not be the most encouraging verse! Let’s try another one:
Mark 2 (New International Version)
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
1A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
I used this turtle story once with a group of ESL adults, knowing the struggles they deal with trying to learn a very difficult language while managing a job, home, family, children in schools----and a culture they don’t understand. I could tell you countless stories of people I met who are working MUCH harder than you and I ever will, all the while trying to learn English. The image of a turtle really resonated with them, because of how slow the learning process was for them----- (And the fact that I had to pantomime the turtle digging probably was interesting to them as well). But I encouraged them to never give up. To keep digging.
So what kind of turtle are you? Are you a mother turtle, struggling to dig? Or maybe you’re a mother turtle who has completed her difficult task, smoothed it over, and moved on to whatever it is you have to do until the next time? Or maybe you’re a baby turtle, breaking out of your shell, and climbing through the dirt, only to discover blinding sunlight, and obstacles like grass that you have to learn to overcome.
But I think there’s another possibility. I was going to say, whatever you do, don’t throw your hands up and give up----because for a turtle, that’s not a good thing. But then-----a belly-up turtle is like the paralytic man. Flat on his back, unable to walk, maybe only able to throw his hands up in the air---but his friends picked him up, bed and all, and took him to Jesus.
Monday, November 21, 2011
Why did the duck cross the road?
The very first day started my job, I drove across the Huguenot Bridge and headed up the hill to the right. Immediately I realized that was a bad decision, because traffic backs up and moves really slowly-----I thought about how bad it was going to look when I called my first day to say I’d be late!
The next day, and ever since, I’ve crossed the bridge, turned left, and headed around the UR campus. It’s been entertaining, as I’ve watched them tear down the old track and field complex, build the new stadium----one morning I followed a truck carrying a load of bricks, one morning I watched them use a crane to lift the bleachers seats over the top of the stadium and into place, and another day I watched as they used the crane to move huge glass panels up and over and into place in the boxes. Last year they widened the road at the back entrance to campus, built a new sign at that entrance, and built a Frisbee golf course that borders the road in places. It all serves to keep my commute interesting!
One of my very favorite parts is driving past Westhampton Lake, where it almost touches College Road. If you aren’t familiar with the campus, there’s a 10 acre lake right in the middle, which originally was the ‘boundary’ between the men’s side of campus and the women’s side. (Walter could probably tell us about the gate that closed at night and kept the men and the women on their respective sides.) In the spring there are daffodils right on the bank near the road, and the trees all around are starting to bud. Up on the hill at the far end of the lake you can see the chapel with its rose window above the doors. In the summer, they drain and dredge the lake where the creek feeds it, so you can watch the water level lower and then rise when they start to fill it again, and sometimes you can spot “interesting” things that have been thrown into the lake over the course of the year. In the fall, the trees turn beautiful shades of many colors, and you can see the reflection in the water. In the winter, sometimes the lake starts to freeze in places, and if it snows, the lake really stands out against the backdrop of snow blanketing the surrounding woods.
The lake holds a lot of special memories for me. As a student, it was peaceful spot to walk with friends. In fact, Brian and I spent a lot of our dating time walking around the lake, or sitting in the gazebo on the island in the middle of the lake and talking about life and our future. When the boys were little, we often would go with a loaf of stale bread to feed the baby ducks in the spring, and see the turtles sunning on logs at one end of the lake.
You know, those ducks have a great life. They have a huge lake to live in and paddle from end to end. Plenty of bugs and little fish and children throwing bread crumbs and whatever else ducks like to eat. They have to be perfectly happy, living in such luxury.
But you know, more than once I’ve had to stop my car as I drove past the lake, because there’s been a duck, or two, or more IN the road. Sometimes people actually get out of their car to try to “encourage” the ducks to move back into the lake. It’s surprising that we don’t see more ‘flat ducks.’
One particular afternoon, I noticed that there was a large puddle across the road from the lake. And sure enough, two ducks had made their way across the road to wade in the puddle. I say wade, because it was only deep enough for them to step in.
It made me wonder why? Why, when they have a 10 acre lake, would they risk their lives to cross the road and just wade in a puddle, when they could be swimming back where it’s safe and large and full of everything they need?
How often do we do the same thing? God gives us an endless lake to swim in, and everything we could possibly need, but we choose to go our own way, and try to satisfy ourselves by stepping in a puddle, when we could swim in a lake, if we’d only trust what God has for us. Are you aware of everything God has provided? Are you thankful? For the large and the small things? Or are you leaving the lake, and crossing the road to get to the puddle.
LUKE 12
Do Not Worry
22 Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. 23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. 24 Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds! 25 Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life[b]? 26 Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?
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